GlobalFoundries announced early 7nm availability, with volume shipments beginning in the back half of next year. The company is promising impressive gains compared with 14nm with up to 40 percent improved performance and 60 percent reduced power consumption.

Qualcomm has fired back with a response and counterclaim to Apple’s $1 billion federal patent suit filed earlier this year. Apple breached agreements and encouraged regulatory attacks in a scheme to coerce unfair licensing terms, Qualcomm claimed. Apple’s suit argues that Qualcomm used its dominant position in semiconductors to force it to pay billions in additional royalty payments for technologies like Touch ID or Apple Pay, or even added memory, which have nothing to do with the Qualcomm baseband processor chipsets used in mobile phones.

Privacy advocates and consumer groups are fighting back against the U.S. Senate’s Thursday vote to undo privacy restrictions on Internet service providers. In a 50-48 party line vote, the Senate approved the Congressional Review Act, S.J. Res. 34. If the House of Representatives gives it the green light, it then will go to the president to be signed into law. “We’re working actively with a coalition of other consumer groups pushing to defeat the resolution in the House,” said John Simpson, director of the Consumer Watchdog Privacy Project.

Intel may be pulling its 8th-gen Core processors in and launching them in the back half of 2017 — but early evidence suggests this could be a split-node generation, with 14nm and 10nm products sharing the same brand name.